1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of power transmission for use in mechanized agricultural equipment, and more particularly to a divider gearbox system having a divider gearbox with an angled input shaft relative to the divided, multiple driveline outputs and a right angle, swivel gearbox coupled thereto for providing power input.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the prior art, it is well known to use constant velocity (CV) joints or gearing to manage the transmission of power from the power take off (PTO) shaft of a tractor to a piece of agricultural machinery such as grain augers, sprayers, mowers, shredders, cutters, tillers, balers, harvesters, seeders, planters and the like. In theory, CV joints are used to transfer a uniform torque and a constant speed between an input shaft and an output shaft or drive axle, while operating through a wide range of angles. This is particularly important for agricultural equipment, such as for example, large flex wing rotary cutters/mowers, since such equipment is likely to be subject to frequent turns and operated on uneven terrain. During use, however, these joints are not designed to handle the high horsepower transmission at high angulations often demanded of such equipment. These high horsepower transmissions at high angulation significantly decrease the operating life of the prior art CV joints and can lead to premature failure. Current CV joints tend to operate at maximum 80 degree angles and it is well known that as the turn angle increases, the ability to maintain a given power level without causing damage to or failure of the CV joint increases. Rather, in turns, operators must slow the tractor to a crawl, shut off the power to the PTO on the tractor, ease into the turn, kick back in the PTO on the tractor, and idle the tractor back up. During mowing season in order to keep equipment running, maintenance often requires daily and sometimes hourly greasing of the CV joint. Further, some farmers and industrial mowing contactors must replace CV joints weekly during peak mowing season. Not only is such maintenance costly, it is also time consuming.
It is also well know in the art to utilize divider gearboxes to split PTO input power from a tractor into multiple drivelines, such as are commonly found on the flex wing cutters mentioned above. In such gearboxes, the power input shaft coupled to the PTO is arranged in the same plane as the multiple power output shafts such that there is no vertical angle between the input shaft axis and the output shaft axes. More particularly, the power input shaft extends from the gearbox housing opposite the divided power output shafts such that power is provided, transferred and divided in the same plane. One drawback to such an arrangement is that energy pulses traveling along the plane are easily transferred from one component, i.e., the power input shaft, to another component, i.e., the divided power output shafts.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, maintaining power during turns is particularly important in equipment that requires multiple drivelines and thus utilizes divider gearboxes. To the extent a CV or similar joint is incorporated into the driveline at some point upstream of such a divider gearbox, any loss of power through the CV joint is made more significant as the driveline is divided or split to provide power to the various driven components of the equipment. Called driveline “thrusting”, this result is due in part to the substantial alignment of the PTO, CV joint and divider all in the same plane. In other words, this so called “thrusting” effect has been observed to pass down such an aligned drivetrain causing interruption. Heretofore, nothing in the prior art provides a system for splitting or dividing drivetrain power without amplifying the loss of power resulting from CV or similar joint.